Consider Her Ways by Frederick Philip Grove

Naturally, this river being one of the most stupendous obstacles to our progress, we settled down to explore it and to find ways and means of crossing. It was so wide that we could barely see its far shores; and its channel was divided by many islands all of which seemed to be massive and wooded at their upper extremities, whereas, at their lower ends, they trailed out into long shallows and sand-banks. The current was sluggish enough and would have permitted us to cross by means of a living bridge if we had had the ant-power to make one. As it was, we had to concentrate from the beginning on other methods of accomplishing the task.

All sorts of ways were proposed: to form a raft and trust to the current, taking boldly to the water in a mass; to use spiders floating, at this time of year, on their webs, anchoring one strand of such a web on the hither bank and forcing the spider to keep on spinning by following her and frightening her into ever more frantic efforts; to roll logs into the river and again, bestriding them, trust to the current. In all which methods we were, in the last resort, depending on a favourable wind.